David Russell Bach Prize

Grammy Award-winning guitarist David Russell is the sole judge of this competition. In May 2014 Maestro Russell was bestowed the Honorary Doctoral Degree from the University of Arizona. About this contest, Russell wrote, “The wonderful music of J.S. Bach is satisfying on all levels: emotionally, intellectually, technically and historically. It has given me so much pleasure and happiness all through my life, that I want to encourage all the students to dedicate some valuable time of their important formative years at the university to studying his music. The competition will be a very good incentive for them to include some of Bach’s works in their repertoire that I hope will give them the same pleasure for their entire lives.”

David Russell Bach Prize Guidelines:

Semi-Final Round: approximately 10 minutes of Bach repertoire (including suites, sonatas, parititas)

Final Round: approximately 15 minutes of Bach repertoire*

*Repertoire from the semi-final round may be repeated in the final